Mugdock Wood Camp

The accommodation camp for a World War II anti-aircraft battery was sited to the north of Milngavie. Site number N9. Part of the Clyde AA Defences, the site was known as Mugdock Wood or Mugdock Castle.

The camp was associated with AA Battery Mugdock which lies about 115 metres to the north, and records indicate some 39 hut bases of various sizes, which could have supported Nissen huts and larger wooden buildings which existed on the site. The battery was never completed or armed, and investigation of the site suggest that the the same is true of the camp, which appears never to have been occupied.

The emplacements, hut bases, and one building survive on the site, and it would appear from the records that this single building was also the only one standing when the RAF took aerial photographs of the area in 1946.

Site visit 2010

A site visit was made to the camp site in August 2010. The site lies down the hill to the south of AA Battery Mugdock and appears to be in two sections, one on either side of the track leading down to the site.

All the huts had their longer axis oriented in an west/east direction.

The western section of the camp is fairly small, and has seven relatively small concrete hut bases arranged in a line descending down the hill in a line

The eastern section is much larger and diverse, and contains the one remaining building. Most of the huts in this section appear to have been long Nissen huts which appear to have had suspended wooden floors, This is suggested by the presence of long hold down bolts fixed into the long red brick walls, but no floor surface remaining. One of the huts was noted to have a concrete block in the centre of the floor area, and this is assumed to have been the cook house. Among the smaller concrete bases in this area is one that shows the remains of two lines of adjacent cubicles - these are too small for showers and this is therefore assumed to have been a toilet block.

The single remaining building has seriously vandalised, and the western end wall has been demolished, leaving a section of the reinforced concrete roof hanging down. Closer examination of the remains revealed that the foundation walls of the two adjacent Nissen huts were incorporated into the walls of this brick building, as were sections of curved steel rail which formed the structure of the Nissen huts - confirming that this structur linked the two huts. Only one other similar brick link has been found so far, at Cove, near Kilcreggan.